Theramĕnes
（
Θηραμένης). An Athenian, son of Hagnon. He was a leading
member of the oligarchical government of the Four Hundred at Athens, in B.C. 411.
Subsequently, however, he not only took a prominent part in the deposition of the Four
Hundred, but came forward as the accuser of Antiphon and Archeptolemus, who had been his
intimate friends, but whose death he was now the mean and cowardly instrument in procuring.
After the capture of Athens by Lysander, Theramenes was chosen one of the Thirty Tyrants (404
B.C.). But as from policy he endeavoured to check the tyrannical proceedings of his
colleagues, Critias accused him before the council as a traitor, and procured his condemnation
by violence. When he had drunk the hemlock, he dashed out the last drop from the cup,
exclaiming, “This to the health of the handsome Critias !” (
Xen. Hell. ii. 3, 2;
Diod.xiv. 5). See Pöhlig,
Der Athener Theramenes
(Leipzig, 1877); and Wilamowitz,
Aristoteles und Athen.
